i am. going. to be. missing a member of congress well we may have just found i'm eighty one lawmakers are a pair of their bags for an all expense paid trip to israel but why has the mainstream media made this a part of their itinerary. start a war on terror check kill osama bin ladin shack we've billions of dollars from the u.s. economy shock so why are we still in afghanistan. the problem is

a lot of these kids don't know once they get him it's hard to get out while it's lights camera and combat while the u.s. military in gauge is a young americans with hollywood films and video games why isn't anyone pressing the reset button on pentagon recruitment. and their riders without a cause at least that's what david cameron would have you believe about london's rebellious youth now the prime minister pins the blame on a quote sick society well we'll speak to that of the people of that society to get their take. on eating up thursday august eleventh eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm lucy coughing up and you're watching our t.v. . well it's been a summer like no other the american economy has been in crisis our suburbs are falling into poverty schools are struggling cities are on the edge of bankruptcy

and of course jobs are few and far between but congress the u.s. congress is of course out on its annual summer break now i do want to give our elected leaders some credit they have been working very very hard on a number of critical issues for example of bridging the first ever downgrade of america's surprised a aaa credit rating and doing something about the jobs crisis that has left fourteen point one million americans out of work now if you like to get all of your information from cable news like i do you'll of course know that these crises have been completely averted otherwise why would these stories be getting the news. we are being told that the three people in custody are in fact the three siblings of the daugherty gang the f.b.i. is now part of the investigation looking for robyn gardner she's the thirty five year old woman who was on vacation with a man she had met online before she vanished were about to see sheryl is new face for the very first time so as you can see with absolutely nothing else more

important going on in this world i think it is very fair to say that congress does deserve a break i mean why have exhausted oneself dealing with frustrated americans rumbling about god knows what at some boring town hall when you can take a week off at a beautiful beautiful beautiful place like this. twenty three feet. deep. in some. plane it's a beautiful beach i'd want to go so according to news reports eighty one u.s. lawmakers and their spouses mind you are all off to israel and these troops are being paid for by a foundation that's been set up by a proxy pro israeli lobby group so nearly one fifth of the u.s. congress is off to visit a single country whose entire population is less than that of new york city now before you say to yourself hey that seems a little bit excessive keep in mind that relations between the united states and

israel are actually at an all time low in fact they have never ever been worse just listen to the israeli defense minister. prince and i'm used to the difference i can tell you that i can hardly remember it was a beautiful full day kids i can hardly remember to see a. pool time we can support and big corporation in the city will strategic on the street legal for events around us it is then what we say is right now ok well ok fine let's just say israel is still the core of the obama administration they're still congress to worry about right so the reason that eighty one lawmakers absolutely have to take this trip is they can come back and tell the other three hundred fifty four members of congress and totally hate on israel to be like hey man stop eating on israel there are friends after all nobody wants a repeat of the disastrous reception that the israel prime minister got last time he visited capitol hill.

like i said it's an august like no other now earlier and this evening i spoke to an activist by the name of adam shapiro he works on pro palestinian issues but i asked him to put his politics aside for a moment and to react to this news of these exciting trips as a u.s. citizen take a look at his response it's really shocking this is happening at this time and you look around the world you see uprisings in. middle east africa no even in europe in london. in europe people are rising up in the streets questioning their what meter is pushing their politicians back at policies in specific be related to economic issues and here we have you know it's. very easy normally. you mention these huge spending in. schools are falling apart and i would normally

if you're taking a vacation in the one controlling the will hold with the new reason for american policymakers to be going to us really lucian's is that you should from prime minister netanyahu visit to the polish are probably ignore time i albeit. issues in the region between israelis and palestinians are at an all time low. in recent weeks publish and you can only use the only question is why aren't the other eighty percent or so or it's true that that is an excellent question but. of course a packers has has a long history of supporting and donating finances to u.s. lawmakers but what about this political situation in this current climate that we're in do you think accounts for why this unprecedented size trip now i mean they've lawmakers have been going over to israel for years but this is twenty percent of the u.s. congress i mean that's a huge huge chunk. i think it actually only underscores what is going on for

a few years now which is that the israelis and i wonder precedence and pressure from civil society around the world including in the united states where people's movements are starting to recognize and understand that the status quo between israelis and the palestinians and the general in the middle east is untenable and imported u.s. support financial support and help political support for israel is untenable moving forward we've seen over the last few months in the arab countries in the region democratic uprising by people demanding human rights amending respect demanding their own citizenship back and part of their demands and also going about reform policies in the region specifically believes the palestinians. in the west in civil society we have efforts on your way which are. great and i think. israel feels he feels that he's on the right you can see what military weapons it's

a threat in the hearts and minds of people and we were posting is finally making a difference now out of your connections all share so i hope we don't lose you but let's talk about some of the numbers that the economy really is story number one right now what is the cost to. the u.s. taxpayers in terms of america's support for israel what are the numbers that we're looking at right now we're looking at over three billion dollars in the military in the news in the additional three billion dollars a year in nonmilitary and this is to a country that has a credit rating not much lower in the united states and the country that is an advanced industrial country israel has a military and. military industry which own weapons it doesn't need united states weapons at this point and all it does provide is really military superiority so you continue to harass its neighbors and when the attack it's not an army continues you often get it on me but so yes only dollars do some u.s.

dollars do go to palestine to help for example rebuilding infrastructure and other humanitarian projects do you ever get the sense that maybe. the money is sort of going to competing causes i would say is going to cause. kids to see as well on your. it's only a few hundred million dollars which is a lot these days but it point is that often as you mentioned the money goes to reconstruction of things that israel destroys so the united states. it's a million dollars to build a room or a school or a hospital clinic or something like that with american league weaponry goes and destroys it and then the united states or europe has to do it again so it's an ongoing cycle on the palestinian side him only really side isn't on the news cycle of continuing to give out any questions of why we don't believe is why it's being used and what policy this is achieving but you know these lawmakers do have to answer to their constituents and we are entering an election year what do you think

they'll be able to say to their constituents and terms of what the american people are getting back their taxpayer dollars. well i'm afraid i'm sorry it seems to me that you know this these days the american public you can rise it or you can rise you can. rise it right we mean it's as a mirror to some extent as well increasingly. it doesn't ask such questions is only interested in sort of faux news type headlines and it will be asking these questions will you be asking about how are you going to. how are you going to stop the democrats from getting health care to everybody using kinds of questions people ask they don't need to ask. questions that need to be asked or the thing is that i can understand why those kinds of questions make sense in a regular year but it really does seem to me like where we're facing an unprecedented time here in london is burning of the world markets are

a complete disaster i don't really feel like we've seen this kind of period of undergrads in recent memory and so it's such a curiosity to me that the global political events wouldn't dictate some sort of shift in focus or a shift in policy when it comes to the u.s. . if you want me to present it as your angel pointed out it it's sort of. i think on point the major media in this country couldn't we. be considered to be hoarding huge aramis it in the ruble went to where you know maybe it needs story in the casey anthony inquiry saga these are the kinds of stories it seems to be dominating american attention when you're right the world isn't one person at the moment you know mickey environmentally and americans you seem to be sitting eating candy on this i'm eating candy and watching as as you rightly point out from a bland news coverage that doesn't seem to mention a single word about this foreign foreign funded trip to a foreign country at

a time where the american people could probably use some help from their own lawmakers right here. shapiro thank you so much islams. now on this very day in two thousand and three nato forces took command of peacekeeping in afghanistan it was the organization's first out of carrier deployment africa today and sort of wrapping it up it seems like the war in afghanistan is only getting deadlier a roadside bomb killed five u.s. soldiers today and this of course on the heels of the largest single loss of american lives since the two thousand and one invasion now for president obama in a state of course is just one in a series of foreign crises that frankly seem to be growing more dire by the day and with a diplomatic confrontation over syria looming ahead is it perhaps time to rethink america's longest war now that is the question i posed to asia times correspondent pepe escobar here's his take. let's start with the obama administration's surge it basically didn't work so we have a search that is going to last roughly a year and

a half just like this surge in iraq it was sold to obama basically by pentagon generals and general david petraeus. as a as the star general in selling. even work just like it didn't work in iraq because in iraq the conditions are completely different in iraq the surge was not the only reason death of violence decrease there were a can can be nation of reasons including the mahdi army deciding not to stock the effect that the shiites had already merril s. conquered by and of course the said cases full of money that was transferred from the americans to sunni leaders tribal leaders plus the fact that al qaeda in iraq they revealed themselves and it had a little bit of power politically crazy in afghanistan is different because in afghanistan it's a nationalist resistance movement it's not only the taliban in afghanistan it's

warlords it's a loosely natwar it's it's triable the warlords as well there are more or less united to expel the foreign invader which is this story out of afghanistan as a collection of warring tribes that when they're not fighting themselves they're fighting a foreign invader but the point is either fraud and spending adèle in five dollars on foreign aid on humanitarian projects and that's been now working out no no because that most of the money doesn't go to many current projects because it. before they didn't get to the community supposed to help they are loaned or by ministers and functionaries in kabul some of these ministers are more or less ruled by gangs in kabul in fact so the little bit of money that trickles down. bro jacks like no building schools or some highways it's not enough and we knew it

when you. make a comparison between american help for the stroke jex and actually chinese or indian involvement direct involvement with some communities it's an enormous difference for instance india built a real indian initiative in western afghanistan has nothing to do with american or international aid the chinese want soup make their older projects independent and forward this international aid structure which the law that once it reaches campbell you lose track of the funds so all the population in different problems is in afghanistan could be pushed especially pushed through most of it. but it has been a norse in the specs they never see the actual fruits of the international involvement so it's no wonder that in the end the lesser evil the fact is that taliban because they promise law and order just like when they were

a virus from ninety six to two thousand and one we're now hearing the obama administration is on the verge of saying that our saddam must sell finally whatever that means if you want the president of the united states if you are the president and states are dealing with economic crisis you had all of these conflicts in front of you how would you allocate your resources what's the point of calling press side to go if you can't afford to pay for that i'm going on for still and often. effect this is the question but who from china should be pulls it to president obama directly and in fact the chinese are posing the question in the rectory all the time of last week there was a harsh condemnation that their ceiling of bans on my look at it took place in washington and almost destroyed the american economy because of all of that because remain in washington which is typical but the chinese indians expect they want a solution to afghanistan that involves older players so it is meet the americans

themselves the russians the africans a pakistani sitting down and discussing it america still doesn't buy it and i was pepe escobar weighing in with his thoughts. now it will come as a surprise to nobody that when london raid the bin laden raid is actually going hollywood now the same exact scene that's behind the hurt locker a film is planning on releasing the blockbuster version of a raid right next to cobra jan because of presumably going to put pro-trade the democratic president in some sort of a non tannic like republican somewhere is bound to get upset over this issue and so enter congressman peter king the chairman of the house homeland security committee is demanding a congressional investigation of what he calls propaganda collusion between the pentagon and the white house and he pings that obama is mailing out copies of this nation's top secret saudi what are something like that effort the mainstream press is also happy to probably cover the non scandal now the sad truth of the matter is

that there is a scandal here that has nothing to do with partisan politics and that's according to bestselling author and radio host david sirota here's part of that interview. what peter king's criticism really brings up and granted he doesn't come at this from a principled position as you say he comes at it from a partisan position but this brings up is the larger corrosion hollywood in the pentagon this gets almost no coverage almost no scrutiny and so what we have here is perhaps inadvertently because of a serendipitous alignment of partisan interests we have perhaps the opportunity to look more deeply at that collision between the pentagon and hollywood and how that really works and it's worked this way for decades over the ban on steroids in the one nine hundred eighty s. is that the pentagon and the larger u.s. national security apparatus grants and denied access to military hardware military post military planes military information is graham tonight that access to that that information based on whether a filmmaker is prepared to make

a pro-war progress or gone a pro-government movie or an antiwar or highly critical piece of filmmaking literally right literally the pentagon is very open about the pentagon will buy an edit screen writers scripts that want there are about the military if those screenwriters and the studios want to have access be able to let's say photograph planes or tanks or aircraft carriers the best example of this of course is the movie top gun top gun was granted a huge amount of access to the military planes and taxpayer subsidized rates because the filmmakers of the movie submitted their script to pentagon editors for the pentagon for why did it to make sure it was perfectly mimicking what the pentagon one of the movie say attacks but then tried to but i have to play devil's advocate here i mean you know the pentagon is an institution that is tasked with protecting the united states it is in its best interest to do whatever is necessary

in order to do that and that includes getting people to can be interested in signing up for it because remember we have an all volunteer military force so. ok what's wrong with that i mean it's in the pentagon's interest to to show its wars to show itself in a positive light why should the military be expected to grant access to some anti military filmmaker well i have no problem the pentagon promoting its message affirmatively that is a pentagon advertisements that it pays for pentagon press releases that promoting itself affirmatively and the pentagon is going to do that it has to do that and i have no problem what i have a problem with is material and hardware that is inherently public property the pentagon does not own net can the pentagon does not explicitly own that plane we as taxpayers all own that the pentagon thereby denying or selectively deny

access to data based on what a journalist or a filmmaker wants to do with that information based on the content based on the ideology based on the politics of the journalist wants to cover the pentagon that is a use of government power that frankly tramples the first amendment that say that this public property can only be seen or only used by people who watch mimic the pentagon's precise line that's a different story than the pentagon simply promoting it so but can't we expect journalists to perhaps highlight this guy i mean you know i was doing quite a bit of research before we get us into appeal and one thing that struck me is that there really aren't a lot of stories about this new york times ran something over the summer when this came out but why do you think there isn't a lot of coverage about this collusion as you call it in the press because it serves the financial interests of two of the most powerful financial actors in the american economy obviously the pentagon and in the larger entertainment industry

the pentagon using and effectively subsidizing the entertainment industry creates a vested interest for the entertainment industry. which of course in many cases only sues organizations it creates a vested interest for those news organizations not to call this into question and that was radio host david sirota. though it does take big money to make war look like a lucrative career in artie's honest to see a turk in a look at how it all plays out for america's youth. a hunch for american youth. to write down the next american and more incorporated a robust business machine is operating at full capacity in the u.s. the strength. from televised ads in hollywood blockbusters. to video games to american presidents going soldiers the real patriots each of them. to what it means to be

a soldier sailor airman marine and call starts the image of the american who is portrayed as that of the invincible hero times square one of the number one entertainment spots in the big apple attracts millions from around the world and across the west apart from the flashing lights and the billboards there's a recruitment center right here one of hundreds just in new york the mesmerizing technique luring young americans into serving are more sophisticated than ever before sponsoring the video game training and said hey pop tournaments and going up to these young kids who perform well and see us military need to see your skills at this video game the first fifteen or sixteen or seventeen year old this is something that's very basic it's a cruel deceptive type of recruitment they want to use all the hippest tools they can to make being in the military has cool is possible now with intimate talk refer at work pages dedicated ten years to being a u.s.

soldier he thought it was the honorable thing to do it presented the military for what it was i don't think anyone would join. but they do join having played one computer game and seen one war movie too many there's no second chances in real life you can you can research a game you can restart a movie there's no second chance when you're actually out there and your life is at risk for something that most of these young men have no idea really the true reason why they're even out there by the time some. these reasons are realized. military force. these the world that are. limits to us it is often too late the problem is that a lot of these kids don't know once they get in it's hard to get out the first time that we out is suicide a military report says eighty percent of soldiers in afghanistan have seen a friend killed or injured in the war of war which we are replacing its promised glory yet nothing stops the military propaganda campaign and i was spending

hundreds of millions of dollars every year recruiting group recruiting people glorifying war glorifying the killing of people whether it's necessary or not but directly on america who also comes in handy for the pentagon there's a joke in the military that the best recruiter is an economic downturn and that recruiter is raging on what happened after two thousand and eight that solve their problem was the desperation of millions of americans we had an economic crisis we've had unemployment zoom up no matter the times the power of the pentagon seems eternal american leaders and not become presidents by challenging american national security come in and there seems to cure the state nor the military industrial complex they just don't do it meaning during you more young americans into more wars with no happy end or game over insight and. new york

are all while young americans are taking up arms for the armed forces the past few days have seen british youth taking well just about anything they can get their hands on and some of the worst rioting that country has seen in the past three decades the british prime minister blames culture but some u.k. citizens disagree or his lawyer emma reports. what ever resources the police need they will get whatever tactics the police feel they need to employ they will have legal backing to do so what we will do whatever is necessary to restore law and order to australia's prime minister david cameron talks tough on wednesday branding pockets of society sick and pledging to reform them but seemingly unlike cameron people who live in the country's poorest communities saw this coming exacerbated by government policy i think that certain things that we had lacked simming used to be things like that that. i think it gave a place for children to go and cuts and stuff like that don't give opportunities

for children who are less fortunate to go and interested in holidays so they resort to. that habit. you know you can't blame you for being fed up in this thing in disenfranchised there's nothing for them because it doesn't seem to be anything for them these days there's no jobs for them there's nothing for them today nothing no way for them to go flying around the street corners the current sickness isn't easily cured it's links to years of liberal policies resulting in an underclass of young people killed equates rights with responsibilities anti social behavior results in a court order seen by many as a badge of honor schooling in deprived areas is disrupted by bad behavior teachers no longer have recourse to punishment and can't count on support from parents. they need they need calming down. i don't know what they. something

constructive not on. with. i see you've got a lot you got nothing to do and schemes that same place to help them have something to do again exploit. the sure it's true as you funds one of those schemes being caught is this bus which goes round the housing estates in hackney providing much needed resources and encouragement to young people they used to be another pass to but now there's no money to pay start so because of government cutbacks the team can only reach half the youngsters they used to be facing in school because they either met the criteria. of seven jesus is. the one to feel that have not achieved anything in life and a restoration change and as a result of that often they go into criminal or maybe drugs or just becoming a society youth unemployment in hackney east london runs it over thirty percent parts of the parish are fairly affluent so it's reasonable to assume that figure

rises substantially when it comes to these council estates it's become a culture where in some cases it's more profitable to stay at home and claim benefits than it is to go out and work for a living there are jobs there if i wanted jobs now in parts in shops everywhere you go out there for advice and europeans who are highly educated who actually speak the language and they're getting the jobs and our own people are not getting them very often because they're not interested in education i don't really want to work the problem of marginalised it's not a quick fix and as folks it's also not an election when they want to make them easier it's wasted on the console it'll be interesting to see what the government does to fix the sickness in the society if the answer is nothing you shouldn't be surprised to see violence flare again in you from all walks of life nor am it party actually. well that's it for now but the news is not as.